Announce: Release of pyShotDetect

I have released some Python code for auto-detecting transitions in video files. If you have a “.dv” video file comprising a number of different scenes (or, technically, shots) these shots can be automatically detected by pyShotDetect, depending on threshold parameters that are set interactively. Once you are happy with the detection, pyShotDetect will write a metadata file (an old style Kino file) which demarcates each shot. This file can subsequently be edited in Kino (eg to extract each shot).

It is particularly effective on fade to/through black transitions and cuts.

Load a file:

The high ridges show shot changes which have been auto detected (sensitivity can be changed by adjusting a threshold). The spike in the middle shows a fade through black transition. Right click and chose fade to black here automatically detects the start and finish of the transition:

The transition itself is not exported (red triangle), but this can be changed if you want to keep a record of the transitions themselves. You don’t have to do each individually, there is an option to have pyShotDetect just find all fade to black transitions for you automatically.

The code is written in Python, and has openCV, Tkinter and matplotlib as dependencies. Licensed under GPLv3